Creative Crannie

My Crannie is always busy writing notes and jotting down things. She is forever drawing pictures and doodling in notepads. This girl is quite creative.

Hurricane Irene reached us Saturday evening and lasted until about Sunday afternoon. We had nothing to do during the torrential downpours, so Maddie was whispering ideas to Faith and Abrie all morning long. I saw her sneak her notebook upstairs, and they later came down giggling with their "plan:"

It reads:

Nice looking house (with a check mark next to it since they cleaned up)
Tea party at 3 o'clock
Drawing express 4 o'clock (her name she invented for a drawing party where everyone draws pictures together)
1. If you'd like we could give you a foot bath
And also if you'd like we can do our dinner outside
2. When it is freezing we can have some hot snug cocoa

They presented this list to me and Dan, and we were both laughing at how cute it was. And, boy did Maddie really stick to her plans too. She was watching the clock the entire day to make sure they did what they had planned on doing at that specific hour. We even got a foot bath (complete with their pretty rocks from the science museum) in our large spaghetti pot!

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I found this note downstairs this morning on the Cinderella vanity:

I thought it was too cute:

If Princess Faith is in town, she can have anything for free.
Love, Madison

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And, when I was cleaning up the downstairs I found Rapunzel looking like this:

It made me smile. She loves pretending that someone is a peasant, and she fashioned this look by herself for Rapunzel.

Cousins make our world go round

How blessed am I to be an aunt to such amazing kiddos? I consider myself quite lucky. And, on top of that, my girls are blessed with a relationship with their cousins that I always hoped and dreamed they would have. These girls just love their cousins- their best friends.

We spent a wonderful day with cousins. Went on a "nature walk," visited the little farm (and these 6 kids had TONS of fun in the heat!), and just had fun!

Yep, she knows she's hip

The Show Show knows she's cute. I can just tell she knows it. My little Show Show;)

I was psyched the other day to be able to now braid Abrielle's hair. It looked adorable, and boy did she think she looked hip! She is in love with this little Minnie dress that used to be cousin Ella's and slept in it and wore it for 3 days straight. And, then yesterday she wanted to pose against the wall (I wonder where she gets the idea to pose.. her sissies!) with some cool sunglasses.

This is Abrie's new favorite thing to say:
MICKEY!!

New little reader

Faith is the newest reader here!

She's been working all summer on phonics and sight words, and she's now reading beginner stories all by herself. I give her little stories that I invent just for her and she's been reading those, so I know it's not just her memorizing the stories.

HersheyPark Happy v.2

Fun times at Hershey yesterday! Girlies and I stayed the night at Nene and Grampa's house on Thursday night, and went with Tia Rosa to Hershey early in the morning. Dan met up with us by mid-morning. The weather forecasted rain all day, and we had nothing but clear skies all day. It didn't start storming until 4pm, and by that time we'd been there for almost 7 hours anyway. Abrie was bummed that we didn't get to see more of ZooAmerica (she's really never been to a zoo and has been wanting to go-- she fell asleep in the stroller the last time we went to ZooAmerica, and the only other 'zoo' she's been to is Animal Kingdom), but other than that, our girlies left very content.

Abrie makes me laugh with water. She doesn't take to the water as easily as Maddie and Faith always have. She needs to be allowed time to warm up to the water. But, if you give her her space, she absolutely loves it and will even put her head under the water. She was just loving this little splash area while Maddie and Faith ran around doing the water slide portion of it. And, Maddie and Faith were total fish yesterday. Faith is an animal in the water, and Maddie has come a long way in terms of now loving going underwater.

A first for our little family yesterday was our 1st rollercoaster together. I am NOT a rollercoaster rider, but I do like the kid-friendly coasters. There's one in particular- the Trailblazer at Hershey- that I've always loved. Maddie and Faith were so excited to get on this ride, and Tia Rosa rode with each of them one at a time in the morning while I stayed with Abrie. They LOVED it. And, later when Dan got there, the 4 of us rode while Abrie and Tia Rosa waved. It was fun!

The Hershey Kiss has still eluded us. I haven't had a picture taken with the Kiss since Aunt Lisi, Tia Rosa, and I went way back in high school times. Faith has been drawn to the Kiss since she was 2 years old, and was DYING to meet him. She settled for a stuffed Kiss instead, and she has now named him: Jack Sparrow Hershey Kiss Cutie HersheyPark Happy.

I'd say that's a fitting name;)

Randoms of the past week

Random pictures that made up our week last week:

Abrielle feeding her dolly after tucking herself in for a "nap"

Faith was so happy that I finally remembered to sew her Snow White chef's apron that had been broken since last year. She wore it all day and insisted on doing her Snow White puzzle while wearing it.

We had a couple rainy days this week. Not a problem-- girlies kept busy playing together with their Playmobil pirate ship on loan from cousins. They had quite the elaborate set-up going for a few days.

"Gym class" is still going strong here. Girlies look forward to the mornings with Dad! One morning they kept busy in the baseball field after they had run.

500 entries and days of glory

500th post for me. Not sure if '500th' is a word or not? Oh well, either way it's entry #500 in my little online journal for my 3 girlfriends.

I'm so thankful for this speedy outlet of mine. I have every little memory since Madison was born (and, then Faith and Abrielle) etched forever in my mind-- from the big milestones to the everyday 'trivial' ones that are still as monumental to me as the 'bigger' milestones, but it's always so important for me to still jot down the little things. The details of every moment.

My girls love their journal entries too. They're funny in how much they love looking at their scrapbooks, and photo albums, and reading their posts (which are printed out in binders) and remembering the quirky things they used to say or do. And, a lot of times they were too young to remember those little details, so they love hearing about it.

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Dan has started "gym" class with his buddies. He is a crazed man who somehow lives with little to no sleep, and has decided that he will run a couple of times a week after getting home from work and before me going into work. Once again, he forgoes the sleep schedule of a normal human being and lives off of his little catnaps. So, we've been meeting him outside at 8am and then walking down to the bleachers for the morning run. These girls just LOVE their so-called "gym" class, and it is really nice quality time for them together.

Abrielle hasn't felt well this week, so today she was more of a "cheerleader" for the trio of runners, but she does her "super speed" on the track usually with them as well. Today's unexpected surprise though was our little Flop. My pint sized 4-year old kept pace, and at times OUTRAN her gym teacher Daddy! There was no stopping this girl even when we kept telling her to slow down; she kept insisting that she wanted to run with Dan. I think he was more than happy to have a buddy at his side. Maddie made us laugh too because she's usually the one who will outrun every one of us, but today she was running with a funny looking stance. When I asked her about it later, she explained that it was her way of pacing herself so that she could do 3 whole laps around the track without stopping. And, she was true to her word. She ran slower than typical Maddie speed, but the girl finished 3/4 of a mile without stopping once.

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I accidentally forgot to bring in the sidewalk chalks yesterday during the torrential downpour in the afternoon. Needless to say, we had a bowl of soaked chalks this morning. Well, it turned out to be great morning fun. The chalks were like big oil pastels/paints for the front sidewalk and my girlies just LOVED it. They would put some color down for the outline of whatever it is that they were making and then use their hands like finger paints to fill it in. Their murals came out even brighter and bolder with the wet chalk, and once it "baked" in the sun for a little bit it made it look like a real painting.

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Got home this evening and had to get a meatloaf ready, so girlies had extra play time before dinner. I loved what they were playing, and it was even cuter because it was Abrie that made up the idea: she had her baby Ariel riding a horse and then going on a vacation to the playroom. Big sisters quickly followed suit with the idea and thought it was grand:

Days off together

This family very much looks forward to our days off together. The days are few and far between, but we always make the most of them. My girls' daily question to the both of us is always, "are you off today? When are you off again?" They jump for joy and count down the days when they know the two of us are off together. I am dreading the start of school when Maddie will then be added into the mix of trying to coordinate the days when the 5 of us are together (I am dreading school in general, and refuse to even think about it for now).

Anyway, Dan had his 4-day break this weekend. We decided to do a day in Lancaster on Friday which turned out to be a lot of fun. And, what's best is everything we did was free. Girlies have been asking to go back to Oregon Dairy because they loved it so much. So, we went there first. Faith got to see the cows in the pasture and was in heaven. This girl still just adores cows!

From there we went to Kitchen Kettle Village, a favorite spot of theirs. It's funny how we all always flock straight to the jam shop. The jam shop is just plain awesome. We sampled everything from 4 berry jam to homemade chicken noodle soup to mango salsa. You leave that place feeling like you've eaten lunch, and all for free. We ran into Yummie the Kitchen Kettle mascot and stopped at a couple other shops before going to the playground there to play:

We then stopped over at That Fish Place, the best pet store ever. Faith's been wanting to go to ANY aquarium, but it's just too expensive. Well, she just loved That Fish Place. They got to touch the stingrays in the big touch tank, and they were all fascinated with their enormous selection of freshwater and saltwater fish. The store is essentially a huge warehouse, but their selection is more than impressive.

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We had Donovan's 6th birthday party this weekend as well, and these girls were totally pumped for his space party! They had a lot of fun and don't ever want to come home from their cousins' house.

And, today we spent a lazy morning just taking a walk in the humidity and then Dan suggested we try walking up and down West Reading by the boutiques, and it turned out be a lot of fun. We found some cute little places including a bookstore and a crepes restaurant. Girlies have been reading this cute book about France and crepes, and so it was very fitting that we found a restaurant where I could walk them in and show them how crepes are made.

It was so hot from the humidity by the time we got over to the Stone House that we let them take their shirts off to cool down after getting in the water:

(*The picture of Faith and Abrie makes me laugh. Faith has been taking this purse with her lately whenever we go anywhere. She calls it her "satchel" because she wants to be like Flynn Rider. She reminds me though of Alan from 'The Hangover' with his satchel!).

Innovative wedding fun

This was Maddie, Faith, and Abrie the other day during their pretend weddings. They were a riot!

Faith had the idea to wear raincoats on their heads as wedding veils, and Maddie thought this was brilliant. Abrie thought it was hilarious to just follow them down the steps. Maddie even drew a picture of Jack Sparrow with the words, "I do" in a word bubble:

1,2,3.. and 3,2,1

This made me laugh the other night: girlies gathered in the playroom after getting out of the tub, one by one. And, then Abrie drifted over to their bedroom to have a little more quiet while reading;)

Science, etc

Girlies have been so into their science "projects." They've been hounding me about doing the fun celery osmosis trick that they remember doing, and then we stumbled upon this cool series of science books at the library. They ask me all the time to request new ones from other libraries that our library doesn't carry. So, we've got a bunch of projects lined up for the next week or two.

We made this cool liquid rainbow on Dan's first day off this week. He misses out on all the fun with this crazy schedule of his, so he was really excited about making the rainbow together:

Abrielle was in charge of the drops of red coloring, and so since she went a little overboard with the red it didn't quite "float" on top of the yellow like it was supposed to, but they all still thought it was quite cool.

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The Arctic/Antarctica was this week and last week's subject here. Right up Faith's alley since she LOVES all things from polar climates, specifically the Arctic. She's too funny. Anyway, they had fun making their penguins: